What exactly are gun rights activist against?

[Medusa]

I'm not wanting to debate the pro/anti gun rights situation. What I do want is some clarity on exactly what the 'war' is all about?

What are gun owners concerned with when it comes to the laws of gun ownership?

I know some don't want guns taken out of their 'dead cold hands' but I'm not exactly sure why they would think that would happen.

Are they actually against stricter gun background checks? Or are they worried law will be passed to ban guns alltogether?

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: What exactly are gun rights activist against?

In a word: Fear. In more words: It's classic cognitive dissonance. I personally know people who think the gov't. is going to come to their door and confiscate their guns to gain control over them and enslave them somehow, that if they had to give up their guns they couldn't protect themselves and survive. There's a huge subculture based on post-apocalyptic survival and hatred of government here.

[Spiny Norman]

Re: What exactly are gun rights activist against?

There's a huge subculture based on post-apocalyptic survival and hatred of government here.

Looking in from the outside I find that mystifying.

[Thrudr]

Re: What exactly are gun rights activist against?

In the Netherlands it's forbidden to own guns, unless you are double checked and have several licenses. The few people that do own guns (legally) use it for hunting, not protection.

In a word: Fear. In more words: It's classic cognitive dissonance. I personally know people who think the gov't. is going to come to their door and confiscate their guns to gain control over them and enslave them somehow, that if they had to give up their guns they couldn't protect themselves and survive. There's a huge subculture based on post-apocalyptic survival and hatred of government here.

I don't understand where that fear might be coming from. Even though they lie and fail every now and than like the politicians they are :P I fully trust that the Dutch government is not going to suppress me like that. And there seems to be a whole bunch of people in America that share that fear. So has the American government let their people down too many times or are they not doing enough to make Americans feel safe for their own government? I'm not an American, so I really wouldn't know. I'm curious what the Americans on the forum think of this.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: What exactly are gun rights activist against?

First, don't confuse "some" with "all."

Many, many people who shoot are in favor of some form of gun control, but against draconian gun control. The problem is that their voices are drowned out by the screamers who also have a problem confusing "some" with "all," and fear that ANY "gun control" will be "all guns go by-by."

It's standard American political all or nothing propaganda, where anything means everything, and slippery slopes are the only type of land available for walking on.

[Rae'ya]

Re: What exactly are gun rights activist against?

When Torey was getting all his paperwork together for the move to Australia, his local sheriff (the actual sheriff, mind you) said to us "I don't know about moving to a country where you can't own a gun".

Which is stupid. Because you CAN own guns here. You just need to have a license first. And you can't own an automatic weapon for no good reason (and collections are not classed as 'good reasons').

Australia gets along perfectly fine with it's gun laws. Hunters have guns. Farmers have guns. Gun enthusiasts have guns. Cops and security dudes and whatnot have guns. Game wardens and Park Rangers have guns. Criminals have guns (illegal ones). It's not like there's not a single gun in Australia. The whole US anti-gun-rights thing just boggles my brain. But like Corbin said... it's the 'all or nothing' sort of propaganda (and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's that same sort of propaganda that's responsible for the health care system).

[ThePaganMafia]

Re: What exactly are gun rights activist against?

I find it absolutely hilarious. I always hear about the right to own guns to fight off the government(for some reason this has increased since a black guy got in office).As if your little insurgency of rednecks will have a chance against the largest military in the world if they even tap them to deal with you. The gun culture is mostly paranoia and self defense is a reason to look more masculine when you walk into the grocery store. No ones coming for any guns. It's time for a good subset of Americans and Ted Nugent to stop smoking the NRA crack pipe.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: What exactly are gun rights activist against?

Well, if you know the history of the United States - the real history, not the history that people think they know - there have been frequent occasions when people did actually have to go to war with the government (real, actual, shooting wars), and win, in order to get the rights people think are standard today.

I don't support the current incarnation of the NRA, but just so ya know - one of the major reasons that the NRA was founded - shortly after the Civil War - was to ensure that freed slaves would have weapons to protect themselves when governments refused to do it, and when there were laws preventing them from owning firearms.

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: What exactly are gun rights activist against?

The same people who hate big government and push for states rights above all are causing part of the problem. You can come here to southern MO (or other states) and buy guns/ammo with no paper trail, from private individuals, at shops, auctions, yard sales, etc. and then theoretically bring said purchases to a state with strict regulations and sell them illegally, or use them yourself. The states are not united at all.

People see themselves as able to fend off the combined powers of the military and protect their land with a shed full of firearms and 10 ragtag guys in camo. They have many years worth of food stored, and multiple wells dug. In short, they are wasting their lives preparing for an imaginary war. Because: fear, ignorance, boredom, poverty, radical preachers, etc. There are little militia groups all over the place. They have elaborate plans about how if the power grid goes down, they'll immediately rob Walmart and take all the meds from the pharmacy, etc., etc. When they say the word "survival" their eyes light up. In reality, if something did happen, I think they'd go down in a blaze of infighting.

[Briton]

Re: What exactly are gun rights activist against?

Like I mentioned in the other thread, one American thought you couldn't own anything more dangerous than an air rifle. The reason I bring it up is because these people are so fearful they are ready to believe any propaganda that displays encroaching tyranny. I can get a rifle license, and providing I either have land to shoot on or are a member of a shooting club, I will already be more well armed than most police officers in the UK. I could own a super rifle change of confirmed kills at nearly three kilometres. I can own handguns, automatics, semi-automatics and everything in between. I don't know who tells these people about other countries, outright liars like Trump I guess, but they want to believe it.

It's a combination of believing the government might dominate you without guns (am I more dominated than an American? Don't think so, I don't have to pay tax to my government if I expatriate for a start), that merely the right to own guns is like an obligation. You don't have to own guns for it's own sake. If you don't own one, you're either brainwash by liberal media, or you are a liberal. Dirty word liberal, liberals that don't actually exist in real life.

[DragonsFriend]

Re: What exactly are gun rights activist against?

First and foremost we, in the USA, have the right of self defense acknowledged by the government in the bill of rights. That right existed before the constitution. The right of self defense extends to a government that no longer serves the people. (protecting their rights and freedoms) The rights that we have are a part of nature and especially the nature of mankind.
The two top democratic candidates have both openly stated that they would like to remove guns from the hands of law abiding citizens.
The real, and serious, problem is that restrictions on the guns a person can legally own is meant to prevent crime. Crime cannot be prevented because until the law is broken there is no cause for legal intervention. The laws are in place so that those who harm others can be legally prosecuted. The existence of laws has never stopped criminals. The background checks that are always made when a gun is sold through a licensed dealer don't affect criminals because they buy guns from illegal sources not licensed dealers. More often than not gun registration has led to gun confiscation. Places that have the tightest control on guns also have the highest percentage of VIOLENT crime. Sure, they have lower gun crimes but the overall VIOLENT crime rates are higher.
Police are unable to protect individuals from violent attack. That is a simple truth. There are simply too few police and too many people for each individual to be protected. The job of the police is to investigate the crime, not prevent it. In the county in which I live it can take over an hour for the sheriff to respond to a crime report. In the major cities it still takes three to five minutes for police to respond. That is why mass murders are so easy. It only takes a few seconds to target and kill three people - even with a knife!
Having the right to have guns carries the responsibility to be trained and to educate family members in the safe use of the guns your have. Anyone can, at any time, have a psychotic break and use a gun to commit a crime. We have laws to prosecute those who do, just as we have laws to prosecute any other murder. We have restrictions on who can buy a gun legally just as we have restrictions on who can buy a car, practice medicine and drink alcohol. Even with those restrictions more people are killed by cars and in hospitals than with guns. More people die in their bathtubs each year than die of gunshot wounds. Yet guns are targeted for more restrictions.
As long as we have imperfect humans we are going to have crime. Some of it will be violent crime. Having citizens with legally own guns prevents more crime than deaths by guns. Removing those guns will add that number to the victims of violent crimes. We may indeed end up with fewer gun deaths but our violent crime rate would blossom just like it is in England and Australia.
In a nation of free people there is no need for disarmament. In a nation that is not free there is every reason to disarm people.

In reality it comes down to this. We have rights that are natural rights of birth. Any government that attempts to restrict those rights (beyond where one's individual right interferes with another's individual's rights) is an oppressive government. The right of self defense is the only right that allows us to protect our other rights. Freedom of religion, freedom to speak our mind, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom from intimidation, and all our rights are just words on paper unless you have the ability to enforce them.

World history is full of examples where guns were registered, confiscated and the populations were brought under strict controls and in most cases masses of the populations were killed by the government for political ideology. As long as a population has guns these atrocities cannot occur. During WW II England armed it's citizens to prevent an invasion. The Japanese military didn't invade the American mainland because they were sure that there would be "a gun behind every blade of grass" by their advisors. We, in the USA, don't have a gun problem. We have a crime problem (just like other nations) and we need to focus on prosecuting crime not the law abiding population.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: What exactly are gun rights activist against?

It's a combination of believing the government might dominate you without guns (am I more dominated than an American? Don't think so...

Not today.

How good are you at predicting what will happen 25, 50, 100 years from today?

We'll talk about it then.

I never would have believed that what is happening in American politics right now would ever happen... Yet it is.

[Spiny Norman]

Re: What exactly are gun rights activist against?

I can get a rifle license, and providing I either have land to shoot on or are a member of a shooting club, I will already be more well armed than most police officers in the UK. I could own a super rifle change of confirmed kills at nearly three kilometres. I can own handguns, automatics, semi-automatics and everything in between.

I'm not sure about this because in the UK there is a lot of paperwork and you have to give a good reason for owning a gun. You could probably get a licence for a bolt-action rifle if you belonged to a club, or for a shotgun if you were game shooting on private land. But beyond that I think it's very difficult. In any case it's nothing like the States.

[Briton]

Re: What exactly are gun rights activist against?

I'm not sure about this because in the UK there is a lot of paperwork and you have to give a good reason for owning a gun. You could probably get a licence for a bolt-action rifle if you belonged to a club, or for a shotgun if you were game shooting on private land. But beyond that I think it's very difficult. In any case it's nothing like the States.

I don't deny it's difficult, but it's not impossible. Yes, it's very different from the states, where you can sell a gun to your mate with no background checks. And people wonder why guns get into the hands of criminals. Background checks should be required for ALL sales, otherwise you have all rights to own guns stripped and prison time, as far as I'm concerned. If you can't be responsible with weapons, you shouldn't own them.

- - - Updated - - -

Not today.

How good are you at predicting what will happen 25, 50, 100 years from today?

We'll talk about it then.

I never would have believed that what is happening in American politics right now would ever happen... Yet it is.

You tell yourself that, but plenty of gun-toters I have met and talked with have said this is why they own guns, this is why they should be allowed guns, and that this is why we in the UK are "oppressed" by our government or could be at any moment, except that we aren't.

[Denarius]

Re: What exactly are gun rights activist against?

Ultimately? Infringing the right to keep and bear arms, which is not exclusive to those in a militia.

At any rate restriction is not a solution, it's a stopgap. What we need is funding and reform for schools, mental health, the prison system, and especially research into gun violence. Closing loopholes in current legislation and cracking down on organized crime and the illicit gun trade are next on the list.

But no, it's always about clip sizes and background checks.